I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

Marissa Mayer: No Women, Sorry, But You Cannot Have It All

The news that Marissa Mayer is to become the new CEO at Yahoo set some tongues wagging. For it’s an addition to the very small number of female CEOs at major American companies: excellent news in fact. Then it turned out that she is 6 months pregnant and while that’s also excellent news (for Ms. Mayer and husband at least) it does go to show that it still isn’t possible for women to have it all.

I know, I know, looks, brains, serious job and a child: what does Worstall mean that you cannot have it all? Well, the secret is in this:

A decade on, it’s refreshing to learn that the Yahoo bosses don’t believe motherhood and executive office are incompatible. Mayer has already said, with geeky grit, “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it.”

Leave aside one comment I’ve seen in England this morning: that that statement is obviously being made before the end of her first pregnancy. Those who have already had one child tend not to think that they will be working in at least those first few weeks.

The much more obviously important thing here is that it really isn’t possible to have it all. That first few months, or as we Europeans tend to do it, first year, of concentrating exclusively upon the new child and that high-flying career. That’s the bit of it all that cannot be combined.

A choice needs to be made between one or the other.

Now this is only a very small example of a much larger point. One that I’ve been making loudly for some years now. We’ve really rather got past the point that there is a gender pay gap. We do very much still have a motherhood pay gap. It is not (not when young women on average out earn young men it isn’t) that there is some reservoir of unrecondite sexism in the employers of the country. It is simply true that, on average, women take time out of the workforce when they have children. This reduces their future earning power. Further, some number of women who have children decide that the raising of the children is more important than the return to the rat race for promotion.

This is neither good nor bad: it simply is. The effect is that the wages of women who have children are, on average, lower than those of men who do not take the same career breaks or choices. The only solution would be that maternity leave become parental leave, that couples decide who is to take it and that burden becomes more equally shared (as an aside, this is to become law in the UK and it is to become law precisely and exactly as a result of my pointing this out over the years).

Which brings us back to Ms. Mayer and the proof that you cannot have it all: a choice has to be made. Combining lengthy maternity leave with climbing to the very tippy top of the corporate ladder isn’t possible as yet. Perhaps it should be, perhaps it shouldn’t: but it isn’t. —- This post has garnered quite a lot more interest than I expected it would. So, some further links to matters on the gender/motherhood pay gap. Here is the Centre for Policy Studies report on the gender pay gap in the UK. Here is me in The Guardian on the same point, along with a link to ONS statistics on the point. Me again in The Guardian. Me yet again, this time in the Daily Telegraph, where I point out my responsibility for the shared parental leave proposal. Guess who at the Adam Smith Institute, and again. Umm, me again here at Forbes on a paper that shows that the pill has reduced the gender pay gap. If regulating fertility reduces the pay gap then it’s sorta a clue that the pay gap is about fertility, no? And again here at Forbes laying out the general argument.

Yes, much of it is based upon UK not US figures for those are the figures I know better. More scholarly articles not by me can be found here, here and here.

Please note, I do not deny that there was direct discrimination against women in the past. I do not deny that it still happens, although it is not the general experience. My contention is that what we usually refer to as the “gender pay gap”, that difference in average wages between all men and all women, is not a result of such direct discrimination any more. It is about, rather, the different career reactions to the arrival of children between men and women. It is a motherhood pay gap now, not a purely gender one.

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Sorry Mr. Worstall. I wonder how many American women you know. I had a child that required emergency surgery, typed emails from my hospital bed on morphine and was back in the office full time in three weeks in an executive position at a startup. I also worked to the very day of the delivery. I do have a wonderful husband and a fabulous support system, but it can be done when both parents are involved in rearing of the child, as they should be. While I do understand it was not Yahoo, it did involve long days that were international in scope with all the stresses that one might imagine. I assume Ms. Mayer has even more at her disposal than I do and I’m sure she’ll enjoy proving this little essay of yours as wildly inaccurate. It still boggles my mind that men think they have any business saying what women are and are not capable of as if they understood what the burdens of pregnancy, delivery, post-delivery and the individual willpower of any single woman actually mean, particularly, American women.

Concerning the first half of your comment, you are speaking anecdotally. You were able to do those things…good for you…here’s a biscuit. But that misses the point entirely of the articles such as these (and the one that came out just a few weeks ago that got a lot of press – written by a woman – that stated pretty much the same thing). It isn’t saying that a woman shouldn’t choose to do these things. It is saying that women – like men – can’t do everything and so they shouldn’t beat themselves up. No one can do everything….and chances are, if you think you are, you are wrong. Case and point, you chose to keep your husband around and you may or may not have respected him enough to allow him to help parent your child. You didn’t do it all either. Hint: and that’s completely OK.

“It still boggles my mind that men think they have any business saying what women are and are not capable of”

Kinda like all the women on HuffPo and the like believing they have any business saying what men are and are not capable of….

I am utterly stupified that such a warrantless article was posted on Forbes. I ordinarily let these things pass, but in the words of the Big Lebowski, I simply cannot abide. This article makes a claim, that Marissa Mayer cannot have it all, without one single warrant (that is, supportive argument) behind that claim. The only argument in the whole piece is that there is a reason when women make less – that they take time out of the workforce to raise a child which lowers their experience and resulting pay. I’ve got news for you Tim Worstall, there’s a score of recent economic literature which documents that after controlling for your point, women STILL MAKE SUBSTANTIALLY LESS. If you’d like, I can refer you to them. But that’s the not the point here. The point is that that argument says NOTHING about why Mayer can’t make it as Yahoo CEO and raise a child.

Since suffrage, through the Feminine Mystique era, through today, women have slowly, yet progressively, folded into a postmodern economy. The fact that the announcement of Mayer to Yahoo CEO has a headline touting how unusual she is amongst the ranks of top American executives – alongside such bombastic and sexist headlines such as “Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer Is The ‘Hottest CEO Ever.’ And It’s Great For Business” – substantiates how far we are yet to go. I am afraid that the million pieces poked into that proverbial glass ceiling by good old, yet unsuccessful, Hillary, are being smoothed over by this article – and a larger societal trend.

I’ve seen a lot of commentary on how younger women today are returning to their feminine roots, and appealing the “nurturer” role. I’ve taught many of them, college aged, bright, yet playing stupid so as to seem attractive. And perhaps they have to be attractive to get noticed. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Hillary is always dressed to the nines, with perfect hair; that Marissa is the “Hottest CEO” ever.

We are regressing America. The literal surge of commentary on “whoops, Yahoo, she’s p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t!” is astounding and blatant: A women cannot have it all, because when she gets really close, America will make it damn hard.

“Can you take the heat, woman?”

I was recently listening to a This American Life episode about the characteristics of psychosis, as opposed to empathy, and how for 90-some-odd percent of people empathy dominates. That means that, for most people, self doubt is just part of who you are. Such an outpour of public comment – which in all honestly is a manifestation of the public’s doubt that SHE deserves the position – must be difficult to take. It particularly must be hard to take when simultaneously choosing to take on righting the direction of a declining major company, AND bring another human into the world. I truly hope her husband is more supportive than you lot, America.

One final point: why is it that media always refer to the top women in America by their first name? Obama is Obama, yet Clinton is Hillary, and Mayer is Marissa. I am all for the authenticity and personal character of given name usage – as opposed to the stodgy surname reference to all. But the gendered usage bothers me. It’s almost as if we use the first name to seem supportive and personal to belie the undermining force of the arguments we are making.

Shame on you America. We should expect better. And Marissa, pull through. Make sure your kid is loved, brought to the office from time to time, tucked in at night, and taught the value of gender-blind character and hard work. It’s 2012, yet you’re still living Baby Boom, and I have faith – not because I know you or have a warrant for that claim, but because I want to believe in you and the path you might pave for others.

Know what? She’s going to be guiding with her Brain, not her Uterus. Perhaps she meant that she will “work through the challenge” … ever think of that? As for your glib inferences about what kind of Mother she will be – how dare you? It is as unique in difficulty and ease, as each baby is unique. It think it’s a sad, backhanded article that is trying to standardize Motherhood and Women, and Work/Life Balance – when did any of these things become automated? Maybe Women Can’t Have It All. Maybe We’ll Go Down Trying. Maybe We Will Accept that We Can’t Have It All AT Once! Never the less, show some goddam rallying around Marissa Mayer. No sense in prematurely stepping on the toes of the butt you might have to kiss later!

Know what? She’s going to be guiding with her Brain, not her Uterus. Perhaps she meant that she will “work through the challenge” … ever think of that? As for your glib inferences about what kind of Mother she will be – how dare you! It is as unique in difficulty and ease, as each baby is unique. It think it’s a sad, backhanded article that is trying to standardize Motherhood and Women, and Work/Life Balance – when did any of these things become automated? Maybe Women Can’t Have It All. Maybe We’ll Go Down Trying. Maybe We Will Accept that We Can’t Have It All AT Once! Never the less, show some goddam rallying around Marissa Mayer. No sense in prematurely stepping on the toes of the butt you might have to kiss later!

Know what? She’s going to be guiding with her Brain, not her Uterus. Perhaps she meant that she will “work through the challenge” … ever think of that? As for your glib inferences about what kind of Mother she will be – how dare you! It is as unique in difficulty and ease, as each baby is unique. Tim’s article is a sad, backhanded compliment that is trying to standardize one Woman into Motherhood and Work/Life Balance – when did any of these things become automated? Maybe Women Can’t Have It All. Maybe We’ll Go Down Trying. Maybe We Will Accept that We Can’t Have It All AT Once! Never the less, show some goddam rallying around Marissa Mayer. No sense in prematurely stepping on the toes of the butt you might have to kiss later. Way to make it easier for Daughters and Granddaughters.

Ms Mayer will completely overhaul the dynamics of the working world to fit the Female . Right now our business and work world is base on the Male idea of work which is bus ur ass. It does not fit the female at all and is long over due to evolve for all of mankind. We have been held in time warp to old 20th century redundant backwards top<down power control ideals that do not serve anyone anymore.

The glass ceilings has been completely shattered for everyone with Marissa Mayer becoming CEO of Yahoo. Her gift is she completely understands the Power and Joy of REAL seamless integration of Artificial Intelligence.. Now she can be let loose to upgrade our world out of the biological cave man beating ourselves over head into the 21st century seamless Power of cognitive neurology integrating the Whole Person in ONE powerful BALANCED Human.

2000 was suppose to be the brave new World. It is our saving grace as a planet that it is this shift into REAL AI is finally happening now. The virtual expands space.. It allows the human to have much more time to be Human ! Ms Mayer will have plenty of time to enjoy being a Mom with her family as from the looks of it , she has the made the BEST of it being a Female Enjoying life as a Woman.. She loves her clothes, her heels, her skin care, her manicures, facials as much as she enjoys inventing in AI… It is Called BALANCED in Reality. She will evolve the world of work is significantly !